The Rough Guide to Ibiza & Formentera (Paperback)

~ Iain Stewart (Author) "By far the easiest and cheapest way to get to Ibiza and Formentera is to fly to Ibiza airport; if your final destination is Formentera,..." (more)
Key Phrases: chillout bars, signposted turnoff, defence tower, Ibiza Town, Sant Antoni, Sant Josep (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This guide was excellent, and extremely comprehensive". A reader from Bristol, UK. Amazon.co.uk, 22 November, 2001 "A good guide for any type of holiday". A reader from Glasgow, Scotland. Amazon.co.uk, 16 August, 2001 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

INTRODUCTION

Widely acknowledged to be the world’s clubbing capital, Ibiza is an island of excess, a unique and almost absurdly hedonistic place where the nights are celebrated with ferocious vitality. Thanks largely to the British tabloid press, the popular perception of Ibiza is of a charmless, high-rise party island, but, while it’s true that high-octane techno tourism is central to the local economy, there’s much more to the island than the clubbing scene.

"Pitiuses" is the general term used to refer to Ibiza, Formentera and their outlying islets; in turn, the Pitiuses are part of the Balearic archipelago, which also comprises Mallorca and Menorca.

Dotted around Ibiza’s dazzling shoreline are more than fifty beaches, which range from expansive sweeps of sand to exquisite, miniature coves nestling beneath soaring cliffs. Many of the best beaches were insensitively transformed into functional holiday resorts in the 1960s, but plenty of pristine places remain if you’re inquisitive enough to seek them out. Ibiza’s hilly, thickly wooded interior is equally beguiling, the countryside peppered with isolated whitewashed villages and terraced fields of almonds, figs and olives. The charismatic capital, Ibiza Town harbours most of the island’s architectural treats, including the spectacular walled enclave of Dalt Vila, and a historic port area replete with hip bars, stylish restaurants and fashionable boutiques. Within easy distance are the small beach resorts of Talamanca and Figueretes, pleasant enough places to spend a day by the sea.

However, for a better selection of beaches, head for the disparate east coast, dotted with family resorts such as Cala Llonga and Es Canar as well as beautiful undeveloped coves like Cala Boix and Cala Mastella, and the slender sands of Aigues Blanques, a naturist beach. The east coast’s main town, Santa Eularia is an agreeable but unremarkable place, though it does boast a decent crop of restaurants and a helping of culture and history on the Puig de Missa hilltop above the town. The isolated, remote northwest is Ibiza’s least developed region, with a rugged coastline ideal for hiking, the two small resorts of Portinatx and Port de Sant Miquel, and a smattering of spectacular coves including the cliff-backed bays of Cala d’en Serra, Benirràs and Portitxol. Inland, the scenery is equally impressive, dominated by the soaring pine-clad Els Amunts hills; between these peaks lie a succession of diminutive, isolated settlements such as Sant Joan and Sant Miquel, each with its own fortified whitewashed church and a rustic bar or two.

Though you’ll often see and hear Castilian Spanish in the Pitiuses, the official language is Catalan, which has replaced Castilian on street signs and official documents in recent years. We’ve followed suit and used Catalan in this guide, giving Castilian alternatives where useful.

On the western coast, Ibiza’s second largest town, Sant Antoni, is no architectural beauty, but can boast a dynamic bar and club scene, plus a selection of mellower chillout bars on its much-touted Sunset Strip, home of the infamous Café del Mar. Sant Antoni’s beaches tend to get packed in high season, but west of the town, Cala Conta and Cala Bassa offer luminous water and fine, gently shelving sands. The wildly beautiful south of the island boasts over a dozen beaches, from tiny remote coves like Cala Llentrisca and Cala Moli to the sweeping sands of Salines beach and Es Cavallet on the outskirts of Ibiza Town – two of Ibiza’s most fashionable places to pose.

Serene, easygoing Formentera, the other main island of the Pitiuses, is just a short ferry ride south of Ibiza. With few historical sights apart from some sombre fortress-churches and a few minor archeological ruins, Formentera’s main appeal is its relaxed, unhurried nature and its miles of ravishing, empty sands that shelve into breathtakingly translucent water. Comprised of two flat promontories linked by a narrow central isthmus, the island is very thinly populated; even Sant Francesc Xavier, the attractive but drowsy capital, is little more than village-sized. Though Formentera is equally dependent on tourism, it’s much less developed than Ibiza; its best beaches – Platja Illetes and Platja Migjorn – have barely been touched, and the sole resort, Es Pujols, is a pleasantly small-scale affair.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides; 1st edition (May 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1858286603
• ISBN-13: 978-1858286600
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,036,494 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just the Facts, July 23, 2001

By	Michael C (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

As a travel guide, this book succeeds on a superficial level but fails to deliver the "real" knowledge that a traveler to Ibiza seeks. I'd like to insert a caveat here and say that much of the info that an Ibiza traveler is looking for is probably not something that any author in their right mind would put in a book. this book is mostly filled with info on how to book a flight, find a hotel, commute to the clubs or beaches, and where to eat. Great, if you are traveling to the Grand Canyon, or Great Wall of China but I doubt people go Ibiza to do the "tourist" thing. The book did touch on some wild incidents that were reputed to have occurred in the past causing my imagination to run wild. But overall, the book is very basic. I wish the "Let's Go" series would publish a book on Ibiza. They always put in what you want to know.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb, November 22, 2001

By A Customer

This guide was excellent, and extremely comprehensive. We went to Ibiza in Sept 2001 for the clubs' closing parties, but managed to hire out a car for a three days and explored the island. You've got to get to Atlantis, an amazingo quarry with weird hippy carving and to some of the beaches in the north. The restaurants recommended in the RG were also very well chosen - check out Bambuddha Grove for Thai food...mmmmm...

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad but needs updating -- Jim Edwards, July 31, 2007

By	Jim Edwards (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rough Guide Ibiza and Formentera, Second Edition (Paperback)

Descriptions are detailed and basically accurate. However, this edition is 3 years old and getting out of date, especially for the club information (Pacha is really past it, for instance). Could use some more photos. Overall, I got my money's worth -- the physical info and rating of beaches etc is essentially excellent. Also, it turned me on to some of Ibiza's history, such as Elliot Paul's Life and Death of a Spanish Town. I only spotted one outright mistake: There is NO beach at Cala D'Aubaurca, although the cliffs there are really spectacular and well worth a vist -- and there will be no one else there.